Bahá'í Books & Authors

Religion and faith communities have been a part of America’s struggle with racism throughout its history. While religion has been used to perpetuate oppression and enslavement, it has also inspired and sustained those laboring for justice. Eternal spiritual teachings and practices found across religious traditions—loving one another; recognizing our interdependence; promoting justice; and cultivat...

Many Bahá’ís will be familiar with the name John David Bosch; however, until now his life has not been explored in a comprehensive biography. John and his wife Louise are perhaps best known for their efforts and selfless generosity in helping to establish a Bahá’í school in northern California. The school, which opened in 1927 on the Bosches’ property in Geyserville, would grow as a center of lear...

Thornton Chase believed that "Religion is Life, and Life is Love, and Love is God." This is the story of one of the most significant figures in American Bahá'í history—from the time he joined the Bahá'í Faith in 1894 until his death in 1912. The author traces Chase's years of spiritual search and yearning, his departure from mainstream Protestant belief, and his discovery of the life and teachings...

Roshan Danesh has devoted his career to the study of law and religion with a particular focus on the Bahá’í Faith and its central legal text, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas . In this collection of essays—previously published in a variety of academic journals, including the prestigious Journal of Law and Religion —Danesh invites the reader into an exploration of largely unchartered waters. As he states in the i...

Rarely does a book cover a historically and culturally important topic that has never been written about before. Yet  Lights of the Spirit: Historical Portraits of Black Bahá'ís in North America, 1898-2000  accomplishes precisely this through an absorbing collection of glimpses into the lives of some extraordinary individuals who devoted themselves to a common cause and made outstanding...

The Bahá’í International Community (BIC) has published a book compiling three decades of its statements to the UN on gender equality.  In Full Partnership  is part of global “Beijing+30” initiatives reflecting on commitments, challenges, and progress around advancing gender equality over three decades.  In Full Partnership  is intended as a resource as well as an invitation for...

"The exceptional character of Táhirih in the secular and sacred history of humanity is increasingly being discovered and disclosed. Táhirih’s transcendental and transformative universal love, expressed in her poetry, announces the onset of a new era in human civilization. Sparks of Fire, the fourth volume containing original poems of Táhirih and their English translation by Hemmat and Hatcher, is...

How can we devote our lives to the service of others? How can we approach every interaction we have with love and humility? How can we place the needs of others above our own? Time and time again we can look to the example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. In  The Sweetness of His Love , author Jacqueline Mehrabi shares thirty-eight simple stories that stretch from the early days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s childhood t...

A comprehensive and eye-opening guide to biblical topics as they are addressed in the Bahá’í writings. In Light of the Kingdom, author JoAnn Borovicka explores questions relating to the Bible and its significance and meaning from a Bahá’í perspective. The purpose of the book is to provide an introductory compilation of the wealth of insights on biblical topics offered in the Bahá’í Writings. To th...

Born of the need to address the plight of men of African descent in the United States, and the unique afflictions imposed upon them, the Black Men's Gathering was founded in 1987 as an individual initiative. From its humble origins in a Greensboro hotel room where the original twelve participants met, the Gathering would grow and evolve over the course of a quarter-century to embrace hundreds in a...

Brings to life in rich detail the compelling story of the Prophet and Founder of the Baha'i Faith. An inspiring and dramatically paced introduction to the Prophet and Founder of the Baha'i Faith,  The Story of Baha'u'llah  presents in a clear narrative style the life of the Prophet from His birth into a wealthy and noble family, through His transforming spiritual experience while incarce...

June 2020 marks one hundred years since the two historic Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were delivered to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace at The Hague. The Tablets, combined with His public talks that were presented during His travels in the West between 1911 and 1913, offer comprehensive insights about Bahá’u’lláh’s panoramic vision for the attainment of universal peace. In this volume, the...

Taking as its focus the years 1898–1921, Champions of Oneness portrays the lives of a handful of brilliant pioneers of race amity in the United States who gave everything they could to promote the principle of the oneness of humanity. The thread common among each of their lives was the Bahá’í Faith. Many of them had the fortune of meeting 'Abdu'l-Baha, and would place His guidance and loving couns...

At 14, Richard (Ricky) Abercrombie was besieged by prejudice because of his multi-racial background and angered by unsatisfactory answers to his heartfelt questions about religious truth. The time was 1960, and the place was Greenville, South Carolina. Ricky began carrying a gun, skipping school, and numbing his painful emotions with alcohol. His parents were worried and his future looked bleak. W...

One can only wonder at the awe experienced by those who attained the presence and were blessed to spend time in the company of the Holy Family of the Baha’i Faith. Among the sweetest and most approachable accounts left by those who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land are those of children and youth, who in the earliest days of their lives came face to face with these illumed beings. In  A Child...

Why would you want to read a book about a farming village? The story of 'Adasíyyih will open your eyes to the society building power within the Bahá'í Faith. 1901, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá purchased land in what is now Jordan that would become the village of ‘Adasíyyih. Through His guidance and unending inspiration, Bahá’í pioneers from Iran would soon settle there and transform a degraded parcel of land—whic...

Roy Wilhelm is described by his biographers as quiet and gentle, but iron-willed. Relative to some of his contemporaries in the early Bahá'í community of North America, his is a life perhaps less explored and examined so far by historians. This may be in part because many of the services he rendered were of a behind-the-scenes or administrative nature. What becomes abundantly clear when reading ab...

When the Moon Set Over Haifa by Angelina Allen is a moving account of the time surrounding the passing of the head of the Bahá’í Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, on November 28, 1921. There were six Western believers in Haifa on the night of the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: John Bosch and Louise Stapfer Bosch; Dr. Florian Krug and Grace Krug; and Johanna Hauff. All of them were there as pilgrims. The only other...